This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9B project to build the Barclays Center arena and 15-16 towers at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park Brooklyn in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake going forward. As of 2018, after the arena and four towers were built, Greenland will own 95% of future construction.

The legal challenge to the New York City Department of Buildings’ (DOB) approval of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards modular plans—and, by extension, any similar offsite construction in New York—provoked only moderate engagement yesterday from a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division, First Department.

That suggests an uphill path for the appeal by the Mechanical Contractors Association and the Plumbing Foundation of a 2013 lower court decision upholding the DOB's conclusion that modular construction could proceed in a factory using cross-trained workers without the presence of licensed plumbers and fire suppression contractors.

The cross-trained workers, of course, are paid less, and part of why modular construction is supposed to cost less than conventional construction.

(With the first Atlantic Yards tower, the long-stalled B2, cost overruns and disputes over the factory have elongated the timetable and raised the cost. Separate from this lawsuit, in a legal dispute between Forest City Ratner and former partner Skanska, the latter has charged that cross-trained workers aren't up to the job.)

Safety jeopardized?

Beginning the 18-minute argument, Bret Jaffe, representing the appellants, stressed the seeming unfairness of requiring licensed trades workers to perform such crucial work on-site but not in the factory, thus jeopardizing safety.

Justice Barbara Kapnick soon interrupted, noting there was “very strict oversight” at the modular factory. “Doesn’t that take care of the safety concerns?”

No, responded Jaffe. The licensed plumbers at the building site, he contended, could not evaluate the whether the work was properly done at the factory. The DOB, he said, does not have the authority to decide where licensing applies.

A building? A structure?

Justice Rosalyn H. Richter asked Jaffe to respond to the city’s argument that modules built in the factory—components of a future building, with at least two or three needed to form an apartment—are not buildings.

DOB, Jaffe said, “suggests ‘building’ is a term of art. That’s nonsense.”

Forest City in legal papers, had noted that a structure, according to the city Administrative Code, is “[t]hat which is built or constructed, including among other things: buildings, stadia, tents, reviewing stands, platforms, stagings, observation towers, radio towers, tanks, trestles, open sheds, fences, and display signs.”

Jaffe said that description did encompass a modular unit, since a building, by definition, is not a finished structure.

Justice Richard Friedman, however, suggested that a modular unit didn’t satisfy the code’s requirement. Indeed, when the lawyer for the DOB got her turn, she noted that all the examples “are completed, are self-sustaining.”

Furthering public safety

Richter pointed to what she called “real issue: how does the interpretation you would like us to adopt further public safety?”

The record, the judge was told by the DOB lawyer, demonstrates “extensive efforts” to oversee quality control during the production process. Beyond that, the city agency deserved deference from the courts, which should not interfere with the decision..

Forest City Ratner attorney Bradley Ruskin said “there’s nothing in the record to support the speculation that this is unsafe.”

“When counsel says there’s no way to check,” Kapnick countered, invoking Jaffe, “it does seem some kind of safety issue.”

“Every step in the factory is approved,” Ruskin said, adding that there’s no discretion for variability from the standard. (Then again, setting the modules didn’t work so well at the site, given the apparent slight deviations from standard.)

Jaffe, given a brief rebuttal, said the issue was whether DOB followed the plain language of the code. “The issue here is entirely about safety,” he said, bringing up the recent episode in which illegal siphoning of gas in the East Village apparently led to a horrific fire.

“The reason rigorous licensing requirements exist,” he added, is to avoid that kind of a problem.

While that's part of the lawsuit, more prominent are claims of racial discrimination and retaliation, with black employees claiming repeated abuse by white supervisors, preferential treatment toward Hispanic colleagues, and retaliation in response to complaints.

Two individual supervisors, for example, are charged with referring to black employees as “black motherfucker,” “dumb black bitch,” “black monkey,” “piece of shit” and “nigger.”

Two have referred to an employee blind in one eye as “cyclops,” and “the one-eyed guy,” and an employee with a nose disorder as “the nose guy.”

There's been no official response yet though arena spokesman Barry Baum told the Daily News they, but take “allegations of this kind very seriously” and have "a zero tolerance policy for…

To supporters of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, it's a long-awaited plan for long-overlooked land. "The Atlantic Yards area has been available for any developer in America for over 100 years,” declared Borough President Marty Markowitz at a 5/26/05 City Council hearing.

Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, mused on 11/15/05 to WNYC's Brian Lehrer, “Isn’t it interesting that these railyards have sat for decades and decades and decades, and no one has done a thing about them.” Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco, in a 12/19/04 New York Times article ("In a War of Words, One Has the Power to Wound") described the railyards as "an empty scar dividing the community."

But why exactly has the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard never been developed? Do public officials have some responsibility?

The bi-monthly Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Community Update meeting June 14, held at 55 Hanson Place, addressed multiple issues, including delays in the project, a new detente with project neighbors,concerns about traffic congestion, upcoming sewer work and demolitions, and an explanation of how high winds caused debris to fly off the under-construction 38 Sixth Avenue building. I'll have more coverage.
Security issues came up several times at the meeting.
Wayne Bailey, a resident who regularly takes photos and videos (that I often use) of construction/operations issues that impact residents, asked representatives of Tishman Construction if the security guard at the sites they're building works for them.
After Tishman Senior VP Eric Reid said yes, Bailey asked why a guard told him not to shoot video of the site, even though he was on a public street.

"I will address it with principals for that security firm," Reid said.
Forest City Ratner executive Ashley Cotton, the …

This graphic, posted in January 2018, is post-dated to stay at the top of the blog. It will be updated as announced configurations change and buildings launch. Note the unbuilt B1 and the proposed shift in bulk to the unbuilt Site 5.

The August 2014 tentative configurations proposed by developer Greenland Forest City Partners will change. The project is already well behind that tentative timetable.

How many people are expected?

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park has a projected 6,430 apartments housing 2.1 persons per unit (as per Chapter 4 of the 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement), which would mean 13,503 new residents, with 1,890 among them in low-income affordable rentals, and 2,835 in moderate- and middle-income affordable rentals.

That leaves 8,778 people in market-rate rentals and condos, though let's call it 8,358 after subtracting 420 who may live in 200 promised below-market condos. So that's 5,145 in below-market units, though many of them won't be so cheap.

There are obituary notices in the Bowling Green Daily News and the Wichita Eagle, which state:
He was born in Wichita, KS where he attended public Schools and Wichita State University. He lived for many years in Brooklyn, NY, and was employed as a legal assistant. David's hobby was cartography and had an avid interest in Mass Transit Systems of the world. David was predeceased by his father, Kenneth E. Sheets. He is survived by his mother, Wilma Smith, step-brother, Billy Ray Smith and his wife, Jane all of Bowling Green; step-sister, Ellen Smith Alexander and her husband, Jerry of Bella Vista, AR; several cousins and step-nieces and step-nephews also survive. Memorial Services will be on Monday, January 22, 2018 at 1:00 pm with visitation from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm Monday at Johnson-Vaughn-Phe…

Notably, a lease valued at $40 million "upfront to lease up to 43 acres over 49 years... seems like a good deal on rent for the state-controlled property." Also, the Long Island Rail Road will expand service to Belmont.

That indicates public support for an arena widely described as "privately financed," but how much? We don't know yet, but some more details--or at least questions--have emerged.

An Aqueduct comparable?

Well, we don't know what the other bid was, and there aren't exactly parcels that large offering direct comparables.

But consider: Genting New York LLC in September 2010 was granted a franchise to operate a video lottery terminal under a 30 year lease on 67 acres at Aqueduct Park (as noted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo).

At right is a photo of a poster spotted in Hasidic Williamsburg right. Clearly there's an event scheduled at the Barclays Center aimed at the Haredi Jewish community (strict Orthodox Jews who reject secular culture), but the lack of English text makes it cryptic.

The website Matzav.com explains, Protest Against Israeli Draft of Bnei Yeshiva Rescheduled for Barclays Center:
A large asifa to protest the drafting of bnei yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel into the Israeli army that had been set to take place this month will instead be held on Sunday, 17 Sivan/June 11, at the Barclays Center in Downtown Brooklyn, NY.
So attendees at a big gathering will protest an apparent change of policy that will make it much more difficult for traditional Orthodox Jewish students--both Hasidic (who follow a rebbe) and non-Hasidic (who don't)--to get deferments from the draft. Comments on the Yeshiva World website explain some of the debate.